Marysville merchants offer extended hours

The store owners of the Downtown Marysville Merchants Association reported that the seasonal shopping specials which began with “Merrysville for the Holidays” have continued to boost their business, even as they’ve added new deals to entice customers.

Mary Kirkland of Hilton Pharmacy places hand-cut paper snowflakes from her customers on her store’s walls as part of ‘Snowflake Saturday’ on Dec. 14.

MARYSVILLE — The store owners of the Downtown Marysville Merchants Association reported that the seasonal shopping specials which began with “Merrysville for the Holidays” have continued to boost their business, even as they’ve added new deals to entice customers.

“More and more customers are taking advantage of our late-night hours to finish up their holiday shopping,” Mary Kirkland of Hilton Pharmacy said of the “Late ‘til 8” extended shopping hours of roughly half a dozen businesses in and around the “old town” block of Third Street, which continued through Dec. 21.

Kirkland reported that Marysville merchants are offering individual sales specials to add value to their customers’ holiday shopping, with Hilton Pharmacy kicking off its own unique discount promotion with its “Snowflake Saturday” on Dec. 14, during which anyone could bring in a hand-cut paper snowflake, to add to the store’s collection, in exchange for a free snowflake ornament and 20 percent off their entire purchase. Kirkland collected 11 snowflakes that weekend, and chose to extend the “Snowflake Saturday” deals through the following Wednesday, Dec. 18.

“We’ve had positive reactions to our events on Facebook,” Kirkland said. “We even posted our own video on Facebook, showing how to make hand-cut snowflakes, which brought in more customers and generated some fun comments.”

This Saturday, Dec. 21, the family-owned pharmacy will follow its “Snowflake Saturday” on Dec. 14 with its first-ever ugly Christmas sweater contest on Saturday, Dec. 21.

“Our ugly Christmas sweater party is a way for us to inject some quirky fun into the last week of hectic holiday shopping and preparation,” Kirkland said. “We’ll all be wearing our version of ugly sweaters that Saturday, and we’re inviting customers to wear theirs into the store that day, too. We’ll be awarding prizes for the wackiest, tiniest, worst-fitting and, of course, ugliest sweaters. We’ll even have a pet category. We plan to take pictures of all the entries and post them to our Facebook page to announce the winners.”

Several other downtown Marysville merchants are having in-store promotions during the week, among them Trusty Threads on Third Street.

“We’ll have a ‘Time to Shop’ sale this Saturday,” said Patricia Schoonmaker, owner of Trusty Threads. “From 10-11 a.m. on Dec. 21, we’ll be offering 30 percent off everything in the store. From 11 a.m. to noon, we’ll be offering 25 percent off, and from noon to 1 p.m., it’ll be 20 percent off, so it pays to get in early and save more.”

A number of downtown merchants have gift cards available, which Schoonmaker touted as perfect for last-minute shoppers, while the Downtown Marysville Merchants Association’s Facebook page atwww.facebook.com/marysville.merchants features an online guide for gifts of $25 or less.